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Can an ISP Crackdown Stop Pirates?

Over 70 percent of consumers say they would stop stealing digital content if they got a warning. Yeah, right.

Jim Higdon on March 13, 2008

For those who thought AT&T’spiracy filter was an idea destined to go the way of the dodo, the Betamax and the HD DVD, there is bad news coming out of the U.K. A British media-research firm has issued the findings of a survey, which reports that network monitoring like AT&T’s proposed filter could cut piracy by more than 75 percent – at least among English teenagers

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The EMR Study

Peter Ruppert, former head of music information at MTV Networks Europe, currently runs EMR (Entertainment Media Research), a consulting firm that informs European businesses of different demographics' media and leisure preferences. Based on interviews of 1,608 British consumers between the ages of 15 and 54, the 2008 EMR study focuses on subjects' entertainment choices, tracking everything from gambling and reading habits to social-networking usage and digital piracy.

On the topic of piracy, the EMR report asked British consumers if a warning from their ISP would be enough to make them stop illegally downloading files. A staggering 70 percent said that they would stop if warned, a number that rises to 78 percent among teenage men, according to the study.

Since the typical copyright pirate is an urban-dwelling man between 16 and 24 years old, according to the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), the EMR research data is not good news for privacy and Net-neutrality advocates. AT&T is likely to use it soon as a selling point to its shareholders, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and Congressional oversight committees. A filter to protect copyrighted material is a worthwhile investment, shareholders will say, which has the potential to save $58 billion in revenue and tax dollars currently lost to pirates.

If AT&T’s plan is enacted, pirates will probably turn to encryption technology to avoid detection. Corporate interests like the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and MPAA have already considered this issue, and have decided the best way to fight encryption is to plant the filter technology as spyware on users’ PCs, anti-virus software or media players.

Recording-industry spokesman Cary Sherman said in a speech in February that he can see a future where your ISP, modem, PC, router and anti-virus software all work together to protect the entertainment industry's profit margins.

The Corporate Position

Corporate-content production organizations like the MPAA and RIAA continue their assault against piracy at the expense of everything else. In a zero-sum game, the MPAA and RIAA are intent on becoming winners, even if that means every Internet user is a loser.

In their efforts to persuade lawmakers of their position, these organizations have resorted to the "popcorn argument." The popcorn argument states that since copyright piracy has lowered the number of movie tickets sold, it has also lowered the amount of popcorn sold, which means corn farmers will buy fewer tractors.

"In the absence of movie piracy,” NBC Universal, Inc. argued in a filing with the FCC, “theatres would sell more tickets and popcorn. Corn growers would earn greater profits and buy more farm equipment.” This claim is bolstered by a policy paper by the Institute for Policy Innovation entitled, “The True Cost of Motion Picture Piracy to the U.S. Economy." While the “True Cost” paper includes many graphics and pie charts, none focus on the decrease of farm equipment sales due to a sudden drop in popcorn consumption.

There is also the possibility that as American companies build datacenters overseas (Google in Ireland; Microsoft Corp. in Siberia), corporations could convince these datacenters to circumvent U.S. law in pursuit of copyright pirates.

The Blogs React

Recognizing that the British media-survey data is advantageous to corporations interested in Internet regulation, Net-neutrality advocates have responded with skepticism. Their attitude is: This might work with British teenagers, but is it right for America?

According to DSL Reports the "suggestion that an alert system alone would stop piracy sounds fairly dubious.” Given that the lawsuits and threats of lawsuits stemming from the passage of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act in 1998 have not slowed the growth of P2P (peer-to-peer) usage, it is easy to understand why DSL Reports might be skeptical of a new slap-on-the-wrist measure.

Techdirt also responded, saying any ISP-based filter would “almost certainly block a lot of non-pirated content,” which would cause more anger from consumers and voters, “and a lot more bad publicity.”

Additionally, Techdirt noted, the move to filter content would renew the Net-neutrality battle. In 2006, neutrality advocates lost the first round to corporate executives, whose most damaging argument against Net neutrality was that the “concerns were almost purely hypothetical.” In two years, those concerns have grown into pure reality since Comcast Corp.’s “traffic shaping” incident with BitTorrent Inc. and AT&T's anti-piracy plans.

Regardless, Net-neutrality advocates are not pleased with the EMR report's implications. “What’s next?” asked Alex Curtis at Public Knowledge. “Our keyboards will shock us when we download the wrong music?”

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